Freelancer or Agency: Who Should a Small Business Hire for Marketing?
Both can do excellent work, and both can waste your money. The right choice depends less on the label and more on who will actually be working on your account, and how much attention a business your size will really get.
The short version
- Ask who will actually do the work, day to day, before you sign anything.
- You should own your Google Ads, Analytics and Business Profile accounts, whoever manages them.
- Monthly rolling terms keep everyone focused on results.
- Agencies suit businesses needing many disciplines at scale. A specialist suits most small businesses focused on search.
What an agency does well
It is worth being fair here. A good agency gives you breadth: designers, developers, copywriters, paid media and SEO specialists under one roof. It can cover holidays and sickness without a pause, and it can scale quickly if you need a large campaign across several channels at once. For a business with a substantial budget and lots of moving parts, that can be exactly right.
Where agencies can fall short for small businesses
The challenge for a small business is where it sits in an agency's client list. If your monthly fee is among the smallest the agency handles, it is natural for the most experienced people to spend their time on bigger accounts. Many small business owners describe the same experience: an impressive pitch from a senior person, followed by an account manager relaying messages to someone they never speak to.
That is not true of every agency, but it is common enough that you should ask the question directly before signing.
What a specialist freelancer offers
- Direct access to the person doing the work. No hand-offs, no passing you around a team.
- Accountability that cannot be diluted. If something goes wrong, the person who did it is the person you speak to.
- Lower overheads, which usually means more of your fee pays for actual work rather than office and management costs.
- Flexibility to adapt quickly as your business changes, without a change request process.
The trade-off is capacity and breadth. A freelancer can only take on so many clients, and one person cannot be an expert in everything. The best specialists are honest about what they do not do and will point you elsewhere for it.
Questions to ask anyone before you hire them
- Who will do the work each week? Ask for their name and experience, and whether you can speak to them directly.
- Who owns the accounts? Your Google Ads, Analytics, Tag Manager and Business Profile should belong to you, with the provider given access.
- What is the contract length? Rolling monthly terms are a sign of confidence. Long lock-ins protect the provider, not you.
- How will you report results? Look for enquiries, cost per enquiry and revenue, not just impressions and clicks.
- Can I see work for similar businesses? Case studies with real numbers for businesses of your size are worth more than famous logos.
Red flags
- Refusing to give you admin access to your own accounts.
- Guaranteed rankings or guaranteed numbers of leads.
- Vague answers about who is doing the work.
- Ad spend and management fee rolled into one figure.
- Reports you cannot understand, with no one available to explain them.
How I work
I am a solo specialist, so the person you speak to is always the person managing your account. I have 12+ years in search marketing, I am a certified Google Partner, and I have worked on campaigns for brands including Camden Hells, UEFA and Knight Frank before focusing on small businesses. Everything runs on monthly rolling agreements with no long contracts, and you own every account.
My fees are £750 a month for Google Ads or SEO, or £1,000 a month for both, with ad spend paid directly to Google. I also build Squarespace websites and help with social media planning. Where something falls outside what I do, I will tell you.
Frequently asked questions
Is hiring a freelancer riskier than hiring an agency?
The risks are different. With a freelancer, capacity is limited. With an agency, you can lose visibility of who is doing the work. Owning your own accounts and working on rolling terms protects you either way.
Who should own my Google Ads account?
You should. Your provider should be granted access to an account in your business's name, so your data and history stay with you if you ever move on.
How long should a marketing contract be?
For most small businesses, monthly rolling. Search marketing does need a few months to show its full value, but a provider confident in their work should not need to lock you in.
Want to talk to the person who would actually do the work?
Book a 30 minute call with me directly. No account managers, no sales team, just an honest conversation about whether I am the right fit for your business.